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CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 



AND 



MACAULAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 



BY 



THOMAS L. DOYLE, M.A. 

Instructor op English, Boys* High School 
Brooklyn, New York 



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Speech on Conctliation— Burke 
As You Like It— Shakespeare 

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Essay on Burns— Carlyle 
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CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 

AND 

MACAULAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 



BY 

THOMAS L. DOYLE, M.A. 

Instructor of English, Boys' High School 
Brooklyn, New York 



NEW YORK 
GLOBE BOOK COMPANY 

Flatiron Building 
175 FIFTH AVENUE 



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CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 

The Essay 

Webster defines the essay as "a literary composition, 
analytical or interpretative in nature, dealing with its sub- 
ject from a more or less limited or personal standpoint, 
and permitting a considerable freedom of style and 
method." In a word, as the term implies, it is an attempt, 
as opposed to a treatise. The field may be roughly 
grouped into the formal and the informal. Dawson gives 
the following classification: 

Classical Essay (Milton, Johnson, Burke; a classical 
tone of treatment). 

Letter Essay (the Junius Letters, some of the Spec- 
tator Papers; the essay in letter form). 

Light or FamiHar (Lamb, Steele, Thackeray; a confi- 
dential tone). 

Impassioned Prose (Milton, Burke; rising to the 
oratorical). 

Biographical and Critical (Macaulay, Carlyle ; study 
of the hfe and work of the subject). 

Short Story Essay (Goldsmith's "Beau Tibbs," some 
of the "Spectator Papers," Lamb's "Origin of the Roast 
Pig.") 

The essay on Burns is often called a sermon on life 
rather than a criticism of literature because it is so suf- 
fused with Carlyle's philosophy. Its faults are incoherent 

3 



4 , CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 

sentences and paragraph structure, bad organization (as 
indicated by the numerous repetitions and digressions), 
and lack of judgment (opinion of Keats, Byron, Cooper, 
Gray, etc.). Its enduring quaUties are vividness, energy, 
and universality. 

The Occasion of the Essay on Burns 

The Essay, which was written at Craigenputtock, 
fifteen miles from Dumfries, in a farmhouse amidst the 
dreary moorland, appeared in the "Edinburgh Review" 
in December, 1828, as a review of Lockhart's ''Life of 
Burns." As was customary of reviews in those days, the 
author quickly dismisses the book to be "reviewed" and 
proceeds with his own i*deas on the subject. In doing so, 
he has profoundly influenced not only our conception of 
Burns, but of biography and criticism as well. 

THE LIFE OF CARLYLE 

Carlyle was born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, Decem- 
ber 4, 1795. Father a mason; of sterling worth and of 
undeveloped capacities. Mother deeply religious; could 
not write until she taught herself, late in life. In 1809 
he was sent to Edinburgh University, at great sacrifice to 
the family, to prepare for the ministry. Interested in 
scarcely any subject but mathematics (as contrasted with 
Macaulay; see below). After a period of unsuccessful 
teaching he took up the study of law, supporting himself 
by writing, translating and tutoring. His "Life of 
Schiller" (1825) brought forth a letter of commendation 
from Goethe, whom Carlyle greatly admired. Married 



CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 5 

Jane Welsh, a descendant of John Knox (1826); her 
devotion and diplomacy helped him through his fits of 
despondency and dyspepsia, though he was never really 
well. Compelled to retire, for financial reasons, to 
Craigenputtock, a small estate belonging to his wife, near 
Dumfries, where he lived for seven years. Wrote a series 
of essays on German authors, reprinted with other essays 
in 1838 as "Miscellanies." During this period he also 
wrote ''Sartor Resai'tus" (The Tailor Re-tailored), a fic- 
titious review of a German philosophy on the institutions 
and conventions of human life — that is, clothes. A fail- 
ure in England, but very successful in America, largely 
because of Emerson. His essays on the eighteenth cen- 
tury French philosophers led to the 'Trench Revolution" 
(completed in 1838 in London after the original manu- 
script had been accidentally destroyed by his friend 
Mills) ; poorly paid for his superhuman labors. Lectured 
on German literature and on "Heroes and Hero Wor- 
ship" with more success. Wrote "Past and Present" in 
1843 ^^'^^ "Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches" in 
1845 (h^s greatest work, according to Taine). His biog- 
raphy of Sterling, the poet, in 1851 has been called "the 
best biography of its size in the language." (Macaulay 
considers Boswell's "Johnson" the greatest.) After thir- 
teen years of research he completed the largest of his 
works, "The History of Frederick the Great" (1858). 
Chosen lord rector of Edinburgh University. While de- 
livering an address there, his wife died. Grief and sick- 
ness made the remaining fifteen years of his life a series 
of tortures. He died at Chelsea, February 5, 1881. His 
works may be classified as critical ("Essay on Burns"), 



6 CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 

historical (''French Revolution"), and ethical ("Chart- 
ism"). His character as exemplified in his philosophy 
may be summed up in three words: Duty, Obedience, 
Sincerity. 

Carlyle's Character 

"Next to Dr. Johnson there is no other figure that 
stands out in English literature with such distinctness and 
virility. In mere Titanic mass Carlyle bulks far larger 
than the old dictator of eighteenth century letters. . . . 
He is by far the greatest man of letters of the nineteenth 
century, the most interesting, noble, and impressive; and 
as a spiritual and moral force, there is no other writer 
who has touched his times so deeply, or deserves more 
honorable memory." — Dawson: "Makers of English 
Prose." (Carlyle's contemporaries were: Tennyson, 
Browning, Macaulay, Ruskin, Thackeray, Dickens, 
Eliot.) 

Outline of the Essay on Burns 

(Numbers in parentheses refer to paragraphs.) 
I. Introduction (i-6). 

A. Neglect of genius, with posthumous compensation. 

B. Biographies. 

1. Dr. Currie's criticism (3). 

2. Mr. Walker's criticism (3). 

3. Mr. Lockhart's criticism (2, 4). 

C. Characteristics of a good biography (5). 

1. What and how produced was the effect of 
society on him ? 

2. What and how produced was his effect on 
society ? 



CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 7 

II. Body. 

A. Summary of Burns' s career (6). 

1. Obstacles of his age. 

2. Obstacles in himself (7). 

B. Burns as a poet (his rank and influence). 

C. Burns the man (8). ( 

1. A tragic life (Napoleon and Sir Hudson 
Lowe). 

2. His sympathy. 

3. His behavior among men (9). 

D. The poetry of Burns. 

1. His sincerity (as contrasted with Byron) 

(II). 

2. His sincerity/(as contrasted with his prose) 

3. Choice of subjects (14). 

4. His sterling worth (18). 

a. Gentleness, earnestness, pity, force 
("Winter Night," "Auld Brig," "Scotch 
Drink") (19). / 

h. His clearness of sight as compared with" 
that of Homer, Richardson, Defoe. 

5. Vigor of his strictly intellectual perceptions' 
(21) illustrated by his letters (23). 

6. His affection (24). 

7. His indignation ("inverted Ipve" — "Dweller 
in Yon Dungeon Dark," "Scots Wha Hae wi' 
Wallace Bled," "Macpherson's Farewell") 
(26). 

8. His humor (29). ^ 



CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 

a. "Tarn o' Shanter" and 'The Jolly 
Beggars." 
His Rank in Literature. 

1. Discussion of some of his poems. 

a. His closeness to Nature in "Address to 
the Mouse," "The Farmer's Mare," 
"Elegy on Poor Mailie" (rhymed elo- 
quence, pathos and sense) (29). 

b. "The Jolly Beggars" (a flood of liquid 
harmony) (31) 

2. The Songs of Burns (32). 

a. Definition of a song (33). 

b. Estimate of Burns's Songs (the best that 
Britain has yet produced). 

1. Their harmony. 

2. Their characteristics (as contrasted 
with those of Shakespeare). 

3. Subjects: "Willie Brew'd a Peck 
o' Maut," "Mary in Heaven," 
"Auld Lang Syne," "Duncan 
Gray," "Scots Wha Hae wi' Wal- 
lace Bled." 

3. Resume of the history of Scotch litera- 
ture (36). 

a. The early writers. 

b. French influence. 

c. Scott's influence (37). 

d. Climax of patriotism in Burns. 
The life of Burns (38). 

I. His youth (not youth and manhood, but only 
youth) (39), 



CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS . 9 

a. Lack of aim. 

b. False ideas of the world (39). 

c. Failure to reconcile himself with Ne- 
cessity. 

d. Influence of his home (40). 

e. Religious quarrels (43). 

2. His trip to Edinburgh (45). 

a. Opinions of Lockhart and Scott (47-51). 

b. Effects of the trip (52-53). 

3. The crisis. 

a. The three gates of deliverance (61). 
G. Lessons from the life of Burns (62) 

1. Blame not with the world. 

a. Inadequacy of friendship (63). 

2. The fault in himself (65-72). 

a. His lack of unity in his purposes. 

b. His lack of religion. 

c. Contrast of his poverty with that of 
Locke, Milton, and Cervantes (64). 

3. Comparison with Byron (73). 

a. Both had messages to deliver. 

b. Both adulated and then persecuted. 

c. Both divided their aims. 

III. Conclusion. 

A. Less worthy of blame than of pity and wonder. 

B. The injustice of the world's judgments. 

I. The ship's condition irrespective of the voy- 
age. 

C. Burns's position in literature (as compared with 
the Shakespeare's and Milton's (75). 



lo CARLYLBS ESSAY ON BURNS 

SYNOPSIS OF THE ESSAY ON BURNS 

(Carlyle has himself provided us with a summary 
which shows how weakly organized the Essay is. Many 
of the following topics may be used for paragraph 
work, e.g., ''Every genius is an impossibility till he 
appears.") 

Our grand maxim of supply and demand. Living misery 
and posthumous glory. The character of Burns a theme 
that cannot easily become exhausted. His Biographers. 
Perfection in Biography. — Burns one of the most 
considerable British men of the eighteenth century: an 
age the most prosaic Britain has yet seen. His hard and 
most disadvantageous conditions. Not merely as a Poet, 
but as a Man, that he chiefly interests and aifects us. 
His life a deeper tragedy than any brawling Napoleon's. 
His heart, erring and at length broken, full of inborn 
riches, of love to all living and lifeless things. The 
Peasant Poet bears himself among the low, with whom 
his lot is cast, Hke a King in exile. 

His Writings but a poor mutilated fraction of what 
was in him, yet of a quality enduring as the English 
tongue. He wrote, not from hearsay, but from sight 
and actual experience. This, easy as it looks, the funda- 
mental difficulty which all poets have to strive with. 
Byron, heartily as he detested insincerity, far enough 
from faultless. No poet of Burns's susceptibility from 
first to last so totally free from affectation. Some of his 
Letters, however, by no means deserve this praise. His 
singular power of making all subjects, even the most 
homely, interesting. Wherever there is a sky above him. 



CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS ■ II 

and a world around him, the poet is in his place. Every 
genius is an impossibility till he appears. 

Burns's rugged earnest truth, yet tenderness and sweet 
native grace. His clear, graphic ''descriptive touches" 
and piercing emphasis of thought. Professor Stewart's 
testimony to Burns's intellectual vigor. A deeper in- 
sight than any "doctrine of association." In the Poetry 
of Burns keenness of insight keeps pace with keenness of 
feeling. Loving Indignation and good Hatred: ** Scots 
wha hae" ; "Macpherson's Farewell" : Sunny buoyant 
floods of Humor. 

Imperfections of Burns's poetry: *Tam o' Shanter,'* 
not a true poem so much as a piece of sparkling 
rhetoric : The "Jolly Beggars," the most complete and 
perfect as a poetical composition. His Songs the most 
truly inspired and most deeply felt of all his poems. His 
influence on the hearts and literature of his country: 
Literary patriotism. 

Burns's acted Works even more interesting than his 
written ones; and these, too, alas, but a fragment: His 
passionate youth never passed into clear and steadfast 
manhood. The only true happiness of a man: Often it 
is the greatest minds that are latest in obtaining it : Burns 
and Byron. Burns's hard-worked, yet happy boyhood: 
His estimable parents. Early dissipations. In Necessity 
and Obedience a man should find his highest Freedom. 

Religious quarrels and skepticisms. Faithlessness: 
Exile and blackest desperation. Invited to Edinburgh : A 
Napoleon among the crowned sovereigns of Literature. 
Sir Walter Scott's reminiscence of an interview with 
Bums. Burns's calm, manly bearing amongst the Edin- 



12 CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 

burgh aristocracy. His bitter feeling of his own indi- 
gence. By the great he is treated in the customary 
fashion; and each party goes his several way. 

What Burns was next to do, or to avoid: His Excise- 
and-Farm scheme not an unreasonable one: No failure 
of external means, but of internal, that overtook Burns. 
Good beginnings. Patrons of genius and picturesque 
tourists: Their moral rottenness, by which he became 
infected, gradually eat out the heart of his life. Meteors 
of French Politics rise before him, but they are not his 
stars. Calumny is busy with him. The little great-folk 
of Dumfries : Burns's desolation. In his destitution and 
degradation one act of self-devotedness still open to him : 
Not as a hired soldier, but as a patriot, would he strive 
for the glory of his country. The crisis of his life : 
Death. 

Little effectual help could perhaps have been rendered 
to Burns : Patronage twice cursed : Many a poet has been 
poorer, none prouder. And yet much might have been 
done to have made his humble atmosphere more genial. 
Little Babylons and Babylonians : Let us go and do other- 
wise. The market-price of Wisdom. Not in the power 
of any mere external circumstances to ruin the mind of 
a man. The errors of Burns to be mourned over, rather 
than blamed. The great want of his life was the great 
want of his age, a true faith in Religion and a singleness 
and unselfishness of aim. 

Poetry, as Burns could and ought to have followed it, 
is but another form of Wisdom, of Religion. For his 
culture as a Poet, poverty and much suffering for a 
season were absolutely advantageous. To divide his hours 



CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 13 

between poetry and rich men's banquets an ill-starred at- 
tempt. Byron, rich in wordly means and honors, no whit 
happier than Burns in his poverty and worldly degrada- 
tion : They had a message from on High to deliver, which 
could leave them no rest while it remained unaccom- 
plished. Death and the rest of the grave : A stern moral, 
twice told us in our own time. The world habitually 
unjust in its judgments of such men. With men of right 
feeling anywhere, there will be no need to plead for 
Burns : In pitying admiration he lies enshrined in all our 
hearts. 

STUDY OF CARLYLE'S STYLE 

I. Apostrophe, Exclamation, Interrogation. 

''Much of his peculiar manner is made up of the 
special figures of interrogation, exclamation, and apos- 
trophe. . . . Interrogation is a large element in his man- 
nerism. . . . Exclamation occurs in every mood. . . . 
The apostrophizing habit is perhaps the greatest nota- 
bility of his mannerism." — Minto. 
Illustration : 

"While the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like 
mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bear- 
ing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on 
their waves; this little Valclusa Fountain will also 
arrest our eye: for this also is of Nature's own 
and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the 
depths of the earth, with a full gushing torrent, into 
the light of day; and often will the traveler turn 
aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse among 
its rocks and pines!" 



14 CARLYLE'^ ESSAY ON BURNS 

(Note that the above ilUistrates not only Apos- 
trophe, but Personification, Incoherence — what is the 
subject of bursts? Characterization — how does it 
sum up Burns's Ufe and works? — Dramatic Power, 
etc. Quote other passages from the Essay in illus- 
tration of the following:) 

IL Verbal Eccentricities. 

"Carlyle's vocabulary is made up of long compounds 
in the German style, of unusual forms, of comparatives 
and superlatives of his own invention." — Scherer. 

III. Incoherence. 

"He leaps in unimpeded jerks from one end of the field 
of ideas to the other; he confounds all styles, jumbles all 
forms, heaps together Pagan allusions, Bible reminis- 
cences, German abstractions, technical terms, poetry, 
slang, mathematics, physiology, archaic words, neolo- 
gisms. There is nothing he does not tear down and 
ravage." — Taine. 

*'Mr. Carlyle's resolution to convey his meaning at all 
hazards makes him seize the most effectual and sudden 
words, in spite of usage and fashionable tastes ; and there- 
fore, when he can get a brighter tint, a more expressive 
form, by means of some strange — we must call it — Car- 
lylism; English, Scotch, German, Greek, Latin, French, 
technical slang, American or lunar, or altogether super- 
lunar, and drawn from the eternal Nowhere, he uses it 
with a courage which might blast an academy of lexi- 
cographers into a Hades void even of vocables." — 
Sterling. 



CARLTLES ESSAY OS BURXS 1$ 

IV. Imagery. 

**He cannot be contented with a single expression: he 
employs figures at every step ; he embodies all his ideas ; 
he must touch forms.'' — Taitte. 

"In describing the language of these books you are 
forced to fall back upon the author's resource of metaphor 
and to say that it is now hke the gleaming of swords, 
now hke the rustle and glance of jeweled garments, now 
terrible as hghtning, now tender as the dew, now firm, 
close, rapid as the tread of armed men, now wildly and 
grandly vague as the voice of forests or the moaning 
of the sea." — Bayne. 

V. Ridicule, Sarcasm. 

"No man ever poured out such withering scorn upon 
his contemporaries." — Burroughs. 

"His talks often remind you of what was said of John- 
son: 'If his pistol missed fire, he would knock you down 
with his butt-end.' " — Emerson. 

\\. Characterization. 

"He sees histor>', as it were, by flashes of lightning. 
A single scene, whether a landscape of an interior, a 
single figure in a wild mob of men, whatever may be 
snatched by the e3-e in that moment of intense illumina- 
tion, is minutely photographed upon the memory-. Every 
tree and stone, almost ever\- blade of grass, ever)- article 
of furniture in a room, the attitude or expression, nay, 
the ver)- buttons and shoe-strings of a principal figure, the 
gestures of momentar}- passion in a wild throng — ever\-- 
thing leaps into vision under that glare with a painful 
distinctness that leaves the retina quivering." — Lowell. 



l6 CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 

VII. Earnestness. 

"His soul is full of earnestness, and nearly every line 
of his writings bears the strong impress of his spirit and 
the stamp of 'I believe' upon it." — Davey. 

"Carlyle preaches the dignity of labor, the necessity of 
righteousness, the love of veracity, the hatred of shams." 
—M. Arnold. 

VIIL Humor. 

"A rough, rugged, vehement spirit is in him, as well as 
a hearty humor, which ever and anon breaks out, sport- 
ing with the foibles, fancies, and manners of the age." — • 
Davey. 

IX. Despair. 

''By degrees the humorous element in his nature gains 
ground, till it overmasters all the rest. Becoming always 
more boisterous and obtrusive, it ends at last, as such 
humor must, in cynicism." — Lowell. 

*'It was his own glory that he never flinched; that his 
despair only nerved him to work the harder; the thicker 
the gloom, the more his light shone." — Burroughs. 

X. Hero Worship. 

"Carlyle was, as everybody knows, a hero worshiper. 
. . . He is never himself until he has discovered or 
invented a hero." — Birr ell. 

"How he loves all the battling, struggling heroic souls !" 
— Burroughs. 

XL Dramatic Power. 

"Such living conceptions of character we find nowhere 
else in prose," — Lowell, 



CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 17 

''Carlyle's French Revolution is no mere record, but a 
great drama passing before our eyes." — Mrs. Oliphant. 

XII. Pathos. 

"Carlyle's writings are not without gleams of pathos all 
the more touching from the surrounding ruggedness." — 
Minto. 

Bibliography 

Clark, T. S.— Study of English Prose Writers (524-569). 
Dawson — Makers of English Prose (163-215). 
Emerson — Discourses. 
Garnett — Life of Carlyle. 
Lowell — My Study Windows (i 15-149). 
Minto — Manual of English Prose Literature (130-177). 
Morley— -Critical Miscellanies (I. 135-203). 
Oliphant, Mrs. — The Victorian Age of English Literature 
(101-121). 
Whipple. — Essays and Reviews (II. 387-392). 



BIOGRAPHY OF BURNS 

Robert Burns was born at Ayr, January 25, 1759. 
Father a gardener ; made every effort to give his sons the 
best possible education. Mother, from whom he is said 
to have inherited his remarkable lyrical gifts, early taught 
him all the local ballads and legends. At nine his only 
schooling was his father and the home library. Read the 
Bible and collections of poems while driving the cart or 
the plow. At twenty-three he made an unsuccessful ven- 
ture in the flax-dressing business. His partner cheated 
him, the shop burned down, and he took to dissipation. 
In 1785 he wrote "The Cotter's Saturday Night" and sev- 



l8 CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 

eral other poems, including satires on the "Auld Licht," 
or strictly Calvinistic church. The following year he be- 
came involved in love affairs with Jean Armour and Mary 
Campbell (immortalized in "Highland Mary"), and was 
about to sail for Jamaica, when the success of his first 
volume prompted him to visit Edinburgh, where he was 
lionized. After a tour of the Highlands, he returned to 
the Scotch capital and carried on a correspondence with 
Mrs. M'Lehose (''Clarinda"). In the spring, he rented 
a farm at Ellisland, was married to Jean Armour, and 
took up the excise service. Here between watching 
smugglers and keeping track of the liquor trade, he man- 
aged to write 'Tam o' Shanter" and contributed to John- 
son's ^'Musical Museum." Moved to Dumfries (1791), 
fell into debt, was involved in political troubles (almost 
losing his excise position), and plunged into excesses. 
Died July 21, 1796, at the age of thirty-eight. To-day 
Carlyle's picture of Burns's sad life is accepted as just. 

Mr. Walker thus describes his appearance: ''His per- 
son, though strong and well-knit, was much superior to 
what might be expected in a plowman, was still rather 
coarse in its outline. His stature, from want of sitting 
up, appeared to be only of the middle size, but was 
rather above it. His motions were firm and decided, and 
though without any pretensions to grace, were at the same 
time so free from clownish restraint as to show that he 
had not always been confined to the society of his pro- 
fession. His countenance was not of that elegant cast 
which is most frequent among the upper ranks, but 
it was manly and intelligent, and marked by a thoughtful 
gravity which shaded at times into sternness. In his 



CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 19 

large dark eye the most striking index of his genius re- 
sided. It was full of mind, and would have been sin- 
gularly expressive under the management of one who 
could employ it with more art for the purpose of ex- 
pression. He was plainly but properly dressed in a style 
midway between the holiday costume of a farmer and 
that of the company with which he now associated. His 
black hair, without powder, at a time when it was gen- 
erally worn, was tied behind, and spread upon his fore- 
head." (Note: Compare this quotation with Carlyle's 
verdict on Walker's biography.) 

SYNOPSIS OF REPRESENTATIVE POEMS 

''Man Was Made to Mourn" (1784). The oft repeated 
dirge of an aged seer who pictures to the young poet the 
miseries of mankind — youthful follies, the inequalities of 
the world, the injustice whereby ''man's inhumanity to 
man makes countless thousands mourn." 

''To a Mouse" (lySs). This was written just after 
he had turned up a field mouse with the plow. He ad- 
dresses the tiny creature in terms of kindliest sympathy, 
referring to himself as "thy poor earth-born companion 
an' fellow mortal." The little catastrophe proves again 
that "the best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft 
agley." In closing, he bitterly remarks that the mouse 
has only the present to worry about, while he fears to 
look to the past or the future. 

"The Cotter's Saturday Night (1785). A faithful pic- 
ture of the poet's own home. A notable poem in the his- 
tory of Romanticism. How does it break with classic 



20 CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 

traditions? Imitated by Whittier in "Snowbound." The 
father comes home with a sage word of advice for all; 
Jenny's lover appears ; the older brothers and sisters take 
their places at the table; the Bible is read after supper; 
then follow prayers and hymns ; and at length the break- 
ing up for the night. How does the poem suggest Gold- 
smith's "Deserted Village"? 

"To a Louse'' (1786). Laments the inappropriateness 
of having such a creature on a lady's hat and concludes 
with the famous lines : 

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us 
To see ourselves as others see us! 

''To a Mountain Daisy" (on turning one down with the 
plow in April, 1786). Greatly admired by Carlyle. Ap- 
plies the lesson of the uprooted flower to betrayed inno- 
cence and to the simple bard unable to cope with the 
world (Burns's own situation). 

"Auld Lang Syne." An immortal tribute to friendship. 
Contrast this with Carlyle's view of friendship. 

''For A' That and A' That." A fervent plea for de- 
mocracy that may be summed up in the well-known lines : 

The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man's the gowd for a' that ! 

"Tarn 0' Shanter." His first and only effort at telling 
a story. Tarn, after a wild night of revels, is riding home 
through the storm when he comes upon a weird meeting 
of the witches headed by Old Nick. They give chase, 
and before he can get across the bridge (which accord- 



CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 2i 

ing to superstitious belief they could not cross), they 
pulled off his Maggie's tail — a grim warning to Tarn to 
heed his wife's advice in the future. In this poem occurs 
the famous lines: 

But pleasures are like puppies spread — 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snowfall in the river — 
A moment white — then gone forever. 

Many of his best songs, like beautiful bubbles which 
vanish at a touch, cannot be expressed in prose. "To 
Mary in Heaven," "Sweet Af ton," "My Highland Lassie," 
and "Highland Mary" are exquisite love lyrics, too fa- 
miliar and too poetical for paraphrasing. They are all 
v/ritten about Mary Campbell, a servant in his landlord's 
house. He exchanged Bibles with her "by the winding 
Ayr" in May, 1786, as a mutual pledge of marriage. She 
died the following autumn. The incident is perpetuated 
in the monument to Burns at AUoway by two small Bibles 
with the lovers' names inscribed. 

Of his songs Emerson says : "Robert Burns, the poet 
of the middle class, represents in the mind of men to-day 
that great uprising of the middle class against the armed 
and privileged minorities, that uprising which worked 
politically in the American and French Revolutions — and 
which, not in governments so much as in education and 
social order, has changed the face of the world — the 
Confession of Augsburg, the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, the French Rights of Man, and the 'Marseillaise' are 
not more weighty documents in the. history of freedom 
than the songs of Burns." 



22 CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 

STUDY OF BURNS'S STYLE 

(Note mnemonic in letter *'S.") 

I. Sublimity. 

"In his abasement, in his extreme need, he forgets not 
for a moment the majesty of poetry and manhood." — 
Carlyle. 

"Repeatedly, in Burns's poems, we find touches of what 
the poet himself so finely calls 'the pathos and subHme of 
human life.' " — Hazlitt. 

Illustration : 

By oppression's woes and pains! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 

But they shall be free ! 
Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foe! 
Liberty's in every blow! 

Let us do or die ! 

—''Scots Wha Haer 

(With the aid of Carlyle's references in the Essay, 
select your illustrations of the following character- 
istics.) 

II. Sportiveness. 

"Everywhere, indeed, in his sunny moods, a full 
buoyant flood of mirth rolls through the mind of Burns ; 
he rises to the high and stoops to the low, and is 
brother and playmate to all caricature ; for this is drollery 
rather than humor ; but a more tender sportiveness dwells 
in him, and comes forth, here and there, in evanescent 



CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 23 

and beautiful touches, as in his Address *To the Mouse/ 
or the 'Farmer's Mare,' or in his 'Elegy on Poor 
Mailie.' " — Carlyle. 

"Such a collection of humorous lyrics is not to be 
paralleled in the English language."— ^'co^f. 

III. Sketching Power, Picturesqueness. 

"No poet of any age or nation is more graphic than 
Burns: the characteristic features disclose themselves to 
him at a glance. Three lines from his hand and we have 
a likeness." — Carlyle. 

"The dialect of Burns was fitted to deal with any sub- 
ject; and whether it was a stormy night, a shepherd's 
collie, a sheep struggling in the snow, the conduct of 
cowardly soldiers in the field, the gait and cogitations of 
a drunken man, or only a village cock-crow in the morn^ 
ing, he could find language to give it freshness, body, 
and relief." — Stevenson. 

IV. Sensuality, Coarseness. 

"The poems and even some of the songs of Burns are 
not free from grossness. In 'The Jolly Beggars' the 
materials are so coarse and the sentiment so gross as to 
make it offensive." — Shairp. 

"The leading vice in Burns's character, and the cardinal 
deformity, indeed, of all his productions, was his con- 
tempt, or affectation of contempt, for prudence, decency, 
and regularity." — Jeffrey. 

V. Scorn, Indignation. 

"Of all the verses which indignation makes. Burns 
has given us among the best that were ever given." — 
Carlyle. 



24 CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 

"The vigor of his satire, the severity of illustration with 
which his fancy instantly supplied him, bore down all 
retort." — Scott. 

VI. Sentiment. 

"What warm, all-comprehending fellow-feeling; what 
trustful, boundless love; what generous exaggeration of 
the object loved!" — Carlyle. 

VII. Sympathy. 

"He has a resonance in his bosom for every note of 
human feeling; the high and the low, the sad, the ludi- 
crous, the joyful, are welcome in their turns to his lightly- 
moved and all-conceiving spirit." — Carlyle. 
■ "Of his songs one main characteristic is that their sub- 
jects, the substance they lay hold of, belongs to what is 
most permanent in humanity — those primary affections, 
those permanent relations of life which cannot change 
while man's nature remains what it is." — Shairp. 

VIII. Scottism, Patriotism. 

"In no heart did the love of country burn with a 
warmer glow than in that of Burns. 'A tide of Scottish 
prejudice,' as he modestly calls this deep and generous 
feeling, 'had been poured along' his veins; and he felt 
that it would boil there until the flood-gates 'shut in 
eternal rest.' " — Carlyle. 

"Burns is a true Scotchman — the flavor of the soil can 
be tasted in everything he wrote." — Emerson. 

IX. Spirit, Vigor. 

"Observe with what a fierce, prompt force he grasps 
his subject, be it what it may! Of the strength, the 



CARLYLES ESSAY ON BURNS 25 

piercing emphasis with which he thought, his emphasis 
of expression may give a humble but a readiest proof." — 
Carlyle. 

"The fire and fervor without which lyrical poetry is 
scarce worthy of the name, Burns possessed in a high 
degree." — Blackie. 

X. Sadness, Pathos. 

"Tears lie in him, and consuming fire, as lightning lurks 
in the drops of the summer cloud. How his heart flows 
out in sympathy over universal nature, and in her bleak- 
est provinces discerns a beauty and a meaning !" — Carlyle. 

"The exquisite description of "The Cotter's Saturday 
Night" affords perhaps the finest example of this, the 
finest sort of pathos. . . . The charm of the fine lines 
written on turning • up a mouse's nest with the plow 
will also be found to consist in the simple tenderness of 
delineation." — Jeffrey. 

XL Sincerity, Naturalness. 

"The chief excellence of Burns is his sincerity and in- 
disputable air of truth." — Carlyle. 

"At last, after so many years, we escape from measured 
declamation, we hear a man's voice." — Taine. 



Summary 

"The memory of Burns — every man's, every boy's, and 
girl's head carries snatches of his songs, and they say 
them by heart, and, what is strangest of all, never learned 
them from a book, but from mouth to mouth. The wind 
whispers them, the birds whistle them, the corn, barley, 



26 CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 

and bulrushes hoarsely rustle them. . . . They are the 
property and solace of mankind." — Emerson. 

"The most absolute and sovereign lyrist of the eigh- 
teenth century. . . . He reached a clarity and simplicity 
of diction unmatched by any one before his time save 
Shakespeare; and he also attained to that choicest gift 
of the greatest poets, the power to give to elemental and 
universal ideas a form of lasting beauty." — Schelling, 

Bibliography 

Blackie, J. S. — Life of Burns ; Scottish Song. 

Carlyle, Thomas — Hero as a Poet; Hero as Man of Letters. 

Clark, T. S. — ^A Study of English and American Poets. 

Kingsley, Charles — Burns and His School. 

Shairp, J. C. — Robert Burns. 

Taine, H. E. — History of English Literature. 

Veitch — The Feeling for Nature in Scotch Poetry. 

QUESTIONS (Regents, College Entrance, Etc.) 

1. Contrast the outer with the inner tragedies of Burns's life 
as presented by Carlyle, and show how each of these affected 
the other. 

2. Show what conditions in Burns's hfe and character were 
unfavorable to his success, and what were the real reasons for 
his failure. 

3. State reasons that Carlyle gives for calling Burns a "true 
poet-soul." Name some of Burns's poems that you have read 
that support Carlyle's assertions. 

4. Carlyle says : "The excellence of Burns is, indeed, among 
the rarest, whether in poetry or prose; but, at the same time, 
it is plain and easily recognized : his sincerity, his indisputable 
air of truth." State the reasons Carlyle gives for this truth and 
sincerity in Burns's works. 

5. What qualities essential to all good poetry does Carlyle find 



CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 27 

in the poetry of Burns? Show how these same quaUties appear 
in any poem with which you are famihar. 

6. To what extent may we regard Burns's life a failure? 
Where, according to Carlyle, does the blame for Burns's failure 
lie? 

7. What, as far as you can learn from the "Essay on Burns," 
does Carlyle consider to be (i) the qualities of all good poetry, 
(2) the characteristics of the great poet. 

8. Carlyle says that for the poet "the ideal world is not remote 
from the actual, but under it and within it." How does he apply 
this truth to the poetry of Burns? 

9. Write a composition on Burns's life in Edinburgh in which 
you make clear the circumstances of his going, the way in which 
he conducted himself while there and the effect his life there 
had upon him. 

ID. Carlyle says: "Burns did much, if we consider where and 
how." Explain just what Carlyle means by this. 

11. "Through Hfe he (Burns) enacted a tragedy, and one of 
the deepest." Comment on the foregoing. 

12. Develop this statement into a paragraph: "It is on his 
songs, as we believe, that Burns's chief influence as an author 
will ultimately be found to depend." 

13. Write on the qualities of Burns as a poet, illustrated by 
quotations or by references to his poems, or on how Carlyle's 
"Essay on Burns" illustrates his idea of a biography. 

14. To what cause or causes does Carlyle ascribe the tragedy 
of Burns's life? 

15. Develop : "To the ill-starred Burns was given the power 
of making man's life more venerable, but that of wisely guiding 
his own was not given." 

16. With regard to opportunities for education and a great 
cause to champion, state what would probably have been Burns's 
experience had he lived to-day in the United States. 

17. Show how Burns's poems reflect his own life and character. 

18. Point out the similarities in the lives of Carlyle and Burns. 

19. Explain Carlyle's statement about man's attitude towards 
Necessity, 



28 CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS 

20. What effects did early environment and education have 
upon Burns? 

21. Discuss Carlyle's relations with Jane Welsh. 

22. What v^as Carlyle's influence on his age? What influence 
did the Essay have? How is it unjust? 

23. Compare Carlyle and Burns ; Carlyle and Johnson. 

24. Show the resemblances and differences between Carlyle 
and Burns. 

25. From the Essay find examples of: irony, sarcasm, meta- 
phor, rhetorical question, reference to history and to literature. 

26. Why is no man a hero to his valet? Apply to the present. 

27. What are the rules of the song? 

28. What lessons of patriotism and duty can be learned from 
the Essay? 

29. "Three lines from his hand, and we have a likeness." 
Find in Burns's poems an illustration of this. How does the 
statement suit Carlyle? 

30. How does Carlyle excuse Burns's failures and lapses from 
morality? 

31. What was the peculiar character of Burns's manhood? 
(38-40). 

22. What is Carlyle's argument against the necessity of "sow- 
ing wild oats"? (42). 

33. What impression did Burns make on Scott? (47-51.) 

34. What does Carlyle mean by "Necessity"? (11, 12.) 

35. How and why were Burns's materials new? (6.) 

36. What American poet resembles Burns, and in what re- 
spects ? 

37. W4iat is Burns's relation to the Romantic Movement? 

38. Explain the following references : "Rose-colored novels 
and iron-mailed epics," "from Dan to Beersheba," "Valclusa 
fountain," "Sir Hudson Lowe." 

39. Give a classification of Carlyle's writings. 

40. Why is Carlyle called "the Censor of His Age"? Give 
instances from the Essay of his injustice and intolerance. 



MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 29 

MACAULAY'S "LIFE OF JOHNSON" 

The Essay 

Biographical (see under Carlyle). "Macaulay's essay 
on Johnson is in itself an almost perfect example both 
of the greatness and the limitations of his power; it dis- 
plays his unrivaled faculty for the collection of details, 
and equally his all but total lack of insight. He sees 
Johnson, as he sees all the personages he describes, en- 
tirely from the outside. He categories all his peculi- 
arities, his slovenly disorder, his boorishness, his voracity, 
his oddities of speech and gesture, his superstitions, his 
humorous petulances, his grotesque absurdities, and thinks 
he has painted the man. He never once recognizes the 
grandeur of that spirit which is concealed beneath this 
uncouth exterior. We must go to Carlyle for that vision. 
Carlyle paints a portrait which lives, Macaulay constructs 
an elaborate mosaic. Any historical personage, even the 
humblest, who has once been bathed in the searching light 
of Carlyle's imagination is henceforth known to us and 
is instinct with vitality. But the most we learn from 
Macaulay is how such a person dressed his hair, ate his 
dinner, or treated his wife. Carlyle gives us the essential 
man; Macaulay enumerates the accidents of the man's 
life. The fact which stands out most clearly about John- 
son in Macaulay's essay is that he tore his food like a 
famished tiger, and ate it with the sweat running down 
his forehead. i^And that is not the cardinal fact of John- 
son's personality. It is not the thing which is best worth 
recollecting, or even remembering at all." Dawson : 



30 MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 

''Makers of English Prose." (Find examples in the Essay 
of Johnson's peculiarities. What is the cardinal fact of 
Johnson's Personality? Why is Carlyle's "Burns" su- 
perior to Macaulay's ''Johnson"?) 

The Occasion of the Essay 

The "Life of Johnson" was written in 1856 for the 
"Encyclopaedia Brittanica," and shows Macaulay at his 
very best. Twenty-five years previous to this he wrote 
for the "Edinburgh Review" a criticism of Croker's edi- 
tion of Boswell's "Life of Johnson." As Croker was 
Macaulay's personal enemy, the review is extremely preju- 
diced, not only towards the work, but towards Boswell 
and Johnson. Even in the later essay it is doubtful 
whether Macaulay the Whig did justice to Johnson the 
Tory. 

LIFE OF MACAULAY 

Thomas Babington Macaulay, the most popular essay- 
ist of his time, was born at Leicestershire, England, Oc- 
tober 25, 1800. Father a Scotch Presbyterian by descent ; 
his mother a Quaker. The former a leader of the Society 
for the Abolition of Slavery and a keen critic of public 
events. The latter "a woman of warm-hearted and affec- 
tionate temper, yet clear-headed and firm withal, and with 
a good eye for the influences which go to the formation 
of character." At the age of three he showed signs of 
remarkable literary ability. Read incessantly ; often lying 
on the rug before the fire with his book on the floor and 
a piece of bread and butter in his hand. At eight he 
wrote "A Compendium of Universal History" — events 



MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 31 

from the Creation down to 1800. Composed poems in 
imitation of Scott's style. Everything correct in spelhng, 
grammar and punctuation, though dashed off at great 
speed. Sent to Shelford at the age of twelve. Disliked 
mathematics and the exact sciences. Perhaps due to this, 
his work showed **a want of philosophic grasp" and "a, 
superficial treatment of problems.'* Entered Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, in 181 8. Won prizes in classics and 
English. 

Had wonderful conversational powers and memory. As 
a child he learned "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" by 
heart, while his mother was visiting with him. At fifty- 
seven he learned in two hours the fourth act of "The 
Merchant of Venice." He once said that if all the 
copies of "Paradise Lost" and "Pilgrim's Progress" were 
lost, he could reproduce them from memory. He read 
almost incessantly and with great rapidity. His "Essay 
on Milton," published in the "Edinburgh Review" (1825), 
made him famous and led to a long series (critical, his- 
torical and controversial) covering a period of twenty 
years. Among the best of these are "Clive," "Warren 
Hastings," "Frederick the Great," "Addison," "Bunyan," 
and "Comic Dramatists of the Restoration." 

Possessed great versatility; not only an essayist, but a 
statesman, orator, poet, and historian. Entered Parlia- 
ment in 1830, where his speeches on the Reform Bill gave 
him first rank in oratory. The young Whig soon became 
an important member of his party, filling many important 
offices. Then came a financial crisis, his father having 
neglected private affairs in his zeal for the Abolitionists, 
and the son had been helping support the family since 



32 MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 

his college days. Had to sell a gold medal won at Cam- 
bridge. Eagerly accepted the post of legal adviser to the 
Supreme Council of India, in which capacity he did great 
work for the cause of education and judicial reform. 
Returning to England in 1838, he was re-elected to Par- 
liament, and for ten years was a prominent member of 
the House of the Cabinet. 

Wrote his "History of England" in five volumes cover- 
ing a period of seventeen years; shows vast research, 
extraordinary narrative powers, and a wonderful style; 
success beyond the wildest expectations ; numerous trans- 
lations and editions. Published "Lays of Ancient Rome" 
in 1842, and a series of biographical sketches, of which 
the "Life of Johnson" is considered the best. In later 
years he was greatly honored ; made a peer of the House 
of Lords in 1857. Died December 28, 1859, and was 
buried in Westminster Abbey. 

Of his character it has been said: "No act inconsistent 
with the strictest honor and integrity has ever been im- 
puted to him." His home life is summed up in the words 
of his sister: "We have lost the light of our home, the 
most tender, loving, generous, unselfish, devoted of 
friends. What he was to me for fifty years who can 
tell ?" Of his personal appearance we learn : "There came 
up a short, manly figure, marvelously upright, with a bad 
neckcloth, and one hand in his waistcoat pocket. Of regu- 
lar beauty he had little to boast ; but in faces where there 
is an expression of great power, or of good humor, or 
both, you do not regret its absence." (Compare with 
description of Burns.) His contemporaries were : Tenny- 
son, Carlyle, Bulwer, Dickens, Browning, Ruskin, Thack- 



MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 33 

eray, and in this country, Irving, Cooper, Bryant, Long- 
fellow, Emerson, Poe, Hawthorne, and Prescott. 



SYNOPSIS OF MACAULAY'S "LIFE OF 
JOHNSON" 

(Numbers in parentheses refer to paragraphs of the 
essay.) 

I. Early Hfe (i). 

A. Father's influence. 

B. Boyhood: from birth at Litchfield, Sept. 18, 1709, 
to his eighteenth year. 

I. His characteristics. 
a. Physical : muscular strength, awkwardness, 

etc. 
h. Mental: indolent, slothful, procrastinating, 

etc. 
c. Moral: generous, gloomy, etc. 

II. Education (2-4). 

A. Before college: various schools till age of sixteen; 
home reading till eighteen ; interest in the classics. 

B. Matriculation at Oxford : eccentricities at this time. 

C. His three years at college : poverty, haughty spirit, 
disrespect of authority, wit, etc. 

III. At the outset of his career (5, 6). 

A. Effects of sickness, poverty, hardships. 

B. Earliest employments : 

1. Friendship of Henry Hervy. 

2. Patronage of Gilbert Walmesley. 

3. Hack work at Birmingham. 



34 MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 

IV. His marriage (7). 

A. Characteristics of Mrs. Elizabeth Porter. 

B. Johnson's admiration for her. 

V. "The Academy" (8). 

A. Causes of its faikire. 

VI. Migration to London, 1737 (9-10). 

A. Condition of letters at this time : literature almost 
without the patronage of the great, and not yet 
with the patronage of the public. 

B. Other writers. 

I. Pope, Thompson, Fielding. 

C. Influence of poverty: his temper, ravenous appe- 
tite, vindictiveness. 

VII. "The Gentleman's Magazine" : reporting Parliamen- 

tary discussions. 

VIII. His prejudices (13). 

IX. "London" — his first satire, 1738 (14, 15): its re- 

ception, 

X. Early associates (16) ; Savage. 

XI. "Life of Savage" : good and bad traits of the book 

(17). 
XIL The Dictionary (18, 19). 

A. First arrangements. 

B. Lord Chesterfield's patronage. 

1. His graciousness to Johnson. 

2. His change of front: why? 

XIII. "The Vanity of Human Wishes" (20, 21). 

XIV. Relations with David Garrick, his erstwhile pupil 

(22), Presentation of "Irene." 

XV. "The Rambler," March, 1750- 1752 (23, 24) : a 



MACAU LArS LIFE OF JOHNSON 3^ 

series of essays on morals, manners, literature ; 
coldly received ; the reason. 

XVI. Death of Mrs. Johnson, 1752 (26) : effects on 
Johnson. 

XVII. Relations with Lord Chesterfield (27-8). 

A. Letter to the Lord — the deathblow to patronage. 

B. Appearance of the Dictionary, 1755. 

1. Merits: command of language, quotations, 
etc. 

2. Defects : wretched etymology, intolerance. 

XVIII. Financial difficulties (29). 

A. Confined in a sponging-house : help of Richardson. 

B. Plans: abridgement of the Dictionary, edition of 
Shakespeare. 

XIX. "The Idler," 1758 (30) : livelier but weaker than 
'The Rambler." 

XX. "Rasselas," 1759 (31-3). 

A. Immediate occasion. 

B. Criticism: anachronistic, polysyllabic. 

XXI. Johnson's pension (34) : how obtained. 

XXII. His edition of Shakespeare, 1765 (36-7). 

A. The Cock Lane Ghost: how connected with this 
work? 

B. Criticism. 

1. Merits: keen analysis of character, scholar- 
ship. 

2. Faults : little knowledge of Elizabethan litera- 
ture, slovenly. 

C. Honors : 

XXIII. His place in letters (38). 

A. As a conversationalist: store of anecdotes, knowl- 



36 MACAULArS LIFE OF JOHNSON 

edge of literature, brilliancy (as opposed to his 
writings), asthmatic gaspings and puffings, etc. 
B. As a dictator: the Club, organized in 1764 with 
Goldsmith, the poet; Reynolds, the artist; Burke,, 
the politician ; Gibbon, the historian ; etc. 

XXIV. Relations with Boswell (39). 

A. Character of Boswell : a coxcomb, a bore, weak, 
vain, garrulous, wine-bibbling, pushing, fawning. 

B. Boswell's Biography : the most famous in litera- 
ture; follows Johnson's every move. 

XXV. Relations with the Thrales (40). 

A. Henry Thrales, an opulent brewer, rig'id principles, 
sound understanding. 

B. Mrs. Thrales, a lifelong friend and admirer of the 
scholar. 

C. Their influence on Johnson. 

XXVI. His Fleet Street house (10). 

A. Its inmates. 

B. His relations with them. 

XXVII. His tour of Scotland, 1773 (41). 

,A. His "Journey to the Hebrides," 1775 — a pleasant 
narrative : how received. 

XXVIII. Political tracts (43) : "Taxation No Tyranny" 
an utter failure ; boyish arguments ; "gambols of 
a hippopotamus" ; his mind unsuited to politics. 

XXIX. "Lives of the Poets," 1779-1781 (45-49). 

A. Merits: shrewd and profound, a more colloqual 
diction. 

B. Faults: full of prejudice (i.e., Life of Gray). 

C. Best Lives : Cowley, Dryden, Pope. 

D. Remuneration: ? 



MACAULAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 37 

XXX. His last clays (50). 

A. His Fleet Street "menagerie" leaves him. 

B. Death of Mr. Thrales and defection of Mrs. 
Thrales. 

XXXI. Final illness and death (51). 

A. His physical suffering. 

B. His death, Dec. 13, 1784; buried in Westminster. 
XXXn. Summary (52). 

A. Diminishing popularity of his works. 

B. Influence of Boswell's "Johnson." • 



, STUDY OF MACAULAY'S STYLE 

I. Imagery. 

"Macaulay was all lire and brilliancy. Every sentence 
was a rhetorical flourish." — Escott. 

"He had unbounded command of illustration." — Gil- 
fillan. 

Illustration : 

"Under a government, the mildest that had ever 
been known in the world — under a government, 
which allowed to the people an unprecedented liberty 
of speech and action — he fancied that he was a slave ; 
he assailed the ministry with obloquy which refuted 
itself, and regretted the lost freedom of those golden 
days in which a writer who had taken but one-tenth 
part of the license allowed to him would have been 
pilloried, mangled with the shears, whipped at the 
cart's tail, and flung into a noisome dungeon to die." 
— Life of Johnson (par. 13). 



3^ MACAU LAV'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 

(The foregoing also exemplifies Macaulay's use 
of balance, his sacrifice of fact for form, his preju- 
dice and self confidence. Find your own quotations 
in the Life or elsewhere in illustration of the follow- 
ing:) 

II. Clearness. 

''Clearness is the first of the cardinal virtues of his 
style; and nobody ever wrote more clearly than Mac- 
aulay." — Stephen. 

''Nobody can have any excuse for not knowing exactly 
what it is that Macaulay means." — Morley. 

III. Balance, Contrast, Epigram. 

"Macaulay delights to leave us face to face with con- 
trasts." — Stephen. 

"He delights to cram tomes of diluted facts into one 
short, sharp antithetical sentence and to condense general 
principles into eyigrams." — Whipple. 

IV. Erudition. 

"Take at hazard any three pages, and you see one, two, 
three, a half dozen, a score of allusions to other historic 
facts, characters, literature, and poetry with which you 
are acquainted. . . . He reads twenty books to write a 
sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a line of 
description." — Thackeray. 

V. Form before Fact. 

"In seeking for paradoxes, Macaulay often stumbles on, 
but more frequently stumbles over, truth." — Gilfillan. 

"In his judgment men are all black or all white." — 
Escott. 



MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 39 

VI. Derision. 

"^'Macaulay has a rough touch; when he strikes he 
knocks down." — Taine. 

*'In his contemptuous and derisive moods, he uses a 
studied meanness of expression that reminds us of the 
coarse famiHarity of Swift." — Minto. 

VII. Narrative Power. 

"Narrative w^as his pecuHar forte." — Nicoll. 
"The clearest and most fascinating of narrators." — 
Freedom. 

VIII. Self-confidence, Egotism, 

"Macaulay's rtianner of writing gives the impression 
that he is wholly infallible." — Grimm. 

"His essays are pronounced in a tone of perfect assur- 
ance." — Gilfillan. 

IX. Prejudice, Bias. 

"He is a terribly partial historian." — Saintsbury. 
"He sometimes allows his Whig propensities to get the 
better of strict justice." — Nicoll. 

X. Patriotism. 

"He had a stout and noble patriotism." — Saintsbury. 

Summary 
"He has a constant tendency to glaring colors, to strong 
effects, and will always be striking violent blows. There 
is an overwhelming confidence about his tone; he ex- 
presses him.self in trenchant phrases, which are like chal- 
lenges to an opposition to stand up and deny them. His 
propositions have no qualifications. We inevitably think 



40 MACAULATS LIFE OF JOHNSON 

of a saying attributed to Lord Melbourne: 'I wish I were 
as cock-sure of any one thing as Macaulay is of every- 
thing.' " — Pattison. 

*'No original opinion requiring patient consideration or 
delicate analysis is, associated with the name of Macaulay. 
It better suited his stirring and excitable nature to apply 
his dazzling powers of expression and illustration to the 
opinions of others." — Minto. 

(See also the opening quotation from Dawson.) 



Bibliography 

Clark, T. S.— Study of English Prose Writers (420-454). 

Collier, W. F.— History of English Literature (461-467). 

Dawson. — Makers of English Prose. 

Minto, W.— English Prose (87-130). 

Oliphant, Mrs.— Victorian Age of English Literature (148-197). 

Saintsbury, G. — Impressions (79-98). 

The Life of Johnson is amply treated by Macaulay. In addi- 
tion to the obstacles of ill-health, poverty and the generally bad 
condition of letters in his time, we must also keep in mind 
that this was the Classical Age in which artificial forms and life- 
less material were alone fashionable. The full force of the 
Romantic Movement was not under way until his death. Crabbe's 
"Village" appeared ©ne year before, and Burns's first poems two 
years after Johnson died. Note the description in the last para- 
graph of the Essay. Thackeray pictures him as "that great, 
awkward, pock-marked, snuff-colored man, swaying to and fro 
as he walked." 

His contemporaries were: Young, ColHns, Gray, Goldsmith, 
Sterne, Smollett, Sheridan, Gibbon, Burke, Reynolds, Garrick. 



MACAULAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 41 

STUDY OF JOHNSON'S STYLE 

I. Latinized Diction {Johnsonese). 

"A wondrous buckram style, ... a measured grand- 
iloquence, stepping or rather stalking along in a very 
solemn way." — Carlyle. 

"Maiiy readers pronounced the writer (of 'Rasselas') 
a pompous pedant, who would never use a word of two 
syllables when it was possible to use a word of six, and 
who could not make a waiting woman relate her adven- 
tures without balancing every noun with another noun, 
and every epithet with another epithet." — Macanlay: 
''Life of Johnson," par. 32. 

(How^ does Macaulay's criticism apply to his own style? 
Quote from the "Life" and from Johnson's writings in 
support of the above and of the following:) 

IL Personification of Abstract Nouns. 

*'To make up what is called 'the Johnsonian manner 
or Johnsonese,' we must take not only these striking pecu- 
liarities of sentence-structure but certain other peculiari- 
ties, especially a peculiar use of the abstract noun." — 
Minto. 

III. Antithesis, Balance. 

"His composition is full of antithesis." — Bascom. 
(Note also quotation, Study of Macaulay, Style i.) 

IV. Didacticism. 

"Johnson was a prophet to his people." — Carlyle. 

V. Sincerity. 

"A mass of genuine manhood, ... a hard-struggling, 
weary-hearted man, having in him the element of heart- 



42 MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 

sincerity, and preaching his great gospel, 'Clear your mind 
of cant !' " — Carlyle. 

VI. Dignity, Gravity. 

"The characteristics of Johnson's prose style are colos- 
sal good sense, though with a strong skeptical bias, good 
humor, vigorous language, and a movement from point 
to point which can only be compared to the measured 
tread of a well-drilled company of soldiers." — Birrell. 

VII. Melancholy, Despondency. 

"He had to go about, girt with continual hypochondria, 
physical and spiritual pain — like a Hercules with the burn- 
ing Nessus-shirt on him." — Carlyle. 

"His 'Rasselas' is the most melancholy and debilitating 
moral speculation that ever was put forth." — Hazlitt. 

VIII. Harshness. 

"He treated those whose opinions had an opposite in- 
clination with little tolerance and no courtesy." — 
Brougham (How like Macaulay?) 

IX. Sympathy. 

"Few men on record have had a more merciful, ten- 
derly affectionate nature than old Samuel. He was called 
a bear ; . . . yet within that shaggy exterior of his there 
beat a heart as warm as a mother's, soft as a little child's." 
— Carlyle. 

X. Prejudice. 

"Touch his religion, glance at the Church of Eng- 
land, or the Divine Right, and he was upon you These 
things were his symbols of all that was good and precious 



MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 43 

for men ; his very Ark of the Covenant ; whoso laid hand 
on them tore asunder his heart of hearts. Not out of 
hatred to the opponent, but of love to the things opposed 
did Johnson grow cruel, fiercely contradictory." — Carlyle. 



Bibliography 

Carlyle. — Heroes and Hero Worship (222-246). 
Clark, T. S.— A Study of English Prose Writers (239-281). 
Masson, D. — British Novelists (156-7). 
Minto. — English Prose Literature (417-428). , 

Page, W. P. — Johnson's Life and Writings (I. 13-100). 
Stephen, L. — English Men of Letters (166-195). 
Stephen, L. — History of English Thought in the Eighteenth 
Century. 



QUESTIONS ON MACAULAY AND JOHNSON 

1. Macaulay says : "Johnson entered on his vocation in the 
most dreary part of the dreary interval which separated two ages 
of prosperity." Describe this "dreary interval." 

2. In what did the importance of Johnson's Dictionary consist? 
What are its chief characteristics? 

3. "Success is attained through manifold struggles and de- 
feats." Show briefly that the life of Johnson illustrates the 
foregoing statement. 

4. Mention some of the good qualities attributed to Johnson 
by Macaulay. 

5. "Though Johnson's pen was now idle, his tongue was active." 
Write a paragraph with this topic sentence, explaining the nature 
and the influence of Johnson's conversation. 

6. Discuss the following: 

a. The versatility of Johnson's literary powers. 

b. The kindness of -nature underneath Johnson's rough ex- 
terior. 



44 MACAU LAY'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 

7. In what ways was Dr. Johnson handicapped in his struggle 
to support himself by literary activities? 

8. Name Johnson's chief works and mention some of their 
extraordinary characteristics. 

9. "Slow rises worth by poverty depressed." Point out how 
this saying of Johnson's was illustrated by his own life. 

10. "The effect of the privations and sufferings which he 
endured at this time was discernible to the last in his temper 
and his deportment." Develop in paragraph form. 

11. Contrast Johnson's education and opportunities for author- 
ship with what they would have been had he lived to-day in 
the United States. 

12. Comment on Macaulay's merits as a biographer and man 
of letters as shown in his "Life of Johnson," or write in some 
detail on the reputation of Samuel Johnson in his own day and 
in ours. 

13. With regard to any one of the following essays, explain 
in paragraph form (a) the central or underlying thought, {h) 
the manner in which the essay is an expression of either the 
age in which it was written or the personality of the author : 
"Essay on Burns," "Life of Johnson," etc. 

14. What in Johnson's life and personahty made him appear 
a truly heroic character? 

15. What traits of Macaulay's character made him especially 
well fitted to appreciate Johnson's genius? 

16. Contrast Johnson with Goldsmith; with Macaulay. 

17. Relate an anecdote illustrative of Johnson's character. . 

18. What famous novels were written during Johnson's time? 
How do they compare with "Rasselas"? 



